Seeking Common Ground in the Debate on the Homeless

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

Published: November 23, 1999

In the week since Nicole Barrett was hit with a brick in a random attack, apparently by a homeless man, the crucial players on the city stage have responded to the intense focus on the mentally ill homeless by relying on what would seem to be a long-rehearsed script, taking predictable positions as they appeal to their usual constituents.

The roles, by now, are familiar: Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani as the law-and-order troubleshooter with his trusty police commissioner, Howard Safir, at his side; the advocates for the homeless and the mentally ill as a chorus of defenders against an overzealous city leader; the news media as voice-over minstrels, setting the narrative tone.

But the tendency toward these stereotypical roles, some officials and experts say, may be hindering the city's response both to the crime against Ms. Barrett, which remains unsolved, and the larger, more intractable problem of homelessness among the mentally ill. And it has overshadowed instances in which historic political enemies seem to be finding common ground on policy.

The stage yesterday was Bellevue Hospital Center, where Ms. Barrett is recuperating from brain surgery. In the drama's latest act, Mayor Giuliani and Mary Brosnahan, the executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, at back-to-back news conferences, presented dueling strategies for dealing with mentally ill homeless people.

In frustrated and even angry tones, the Mayor denounced the advocates, and Ms. Brosnahan, on behalf of her fellow advocates, responded by denouncing Mr. Giuliani. Still, they both expressed a desire to combat homelessness.

''The idea is to deal with the problem,'' Mr. Giuliani said, seeking to clarify his renewed effort to keep the homeless from sleeping on city streets following the attack on Ms. Barrett. ''If somebody is mentally ill, they should be dealt with as if they are mentally ill, not allowed to sleep on the streets.''

Ms. Brosnahan, who is one of Mr. Giuliani's most bitter critics, sat through his news conference at the hospital, then took his lectern after his departure supposedly to counter his remarks, although her theme was much the same. ''We need to be focused on the ultimate solution,'' she said. ''We know what works. We bring people in off the streets. We stabilize them. If they are mentally ill, we try to give them all their medication. Then we move them along to permanent housing.''

But while some traditional Giuliani opponents expressed cautious optimism about his approach, the deep and historical political divide between them has remained evident.

Mr. Giuliani appeared to have offered a bit of an olive branch on Friday, when The Daily News ran a two-page editorial with the headline ''Get the Violent Crazies Off Our Streets.'' Even as Mr. Giuliani, responding in part to the editorial, intoned that the homeless have no right to sleep on the streets, he made other comments, about how outpatient services that are crucial for the mentally ill homeless have never received sufficient financing from the state or the city. Those comments went largely unnoticed or were ignored, even though they could have even more important implications for future policy initiatives.

More noticed were the arrests and disorderly conduct charges against homeless people who sleep on the sidewalks, which added to the level of mistrust that has not allowed advocacy groups, other opponents to the Mayor, or the Giuliani administration to break out of their traditionally adversarial roles.

''There is such hypocrisy in his statements that it's hard to figure out if any part of it is at all well intentioned or is something that he'll follow through on,'' said Councilman Stephen DiBrienza, a Brooklyn Democrat who is chairman of the General Welfare Committee. ''He reacts to the moment and, you know, generates comments for their headline value without regard to their policy implications.''

The Mayor had equally low expectations. On the radio show, he prefaced some of his remarks by saying he expected the usual opposition. ''I know this is going to get some of the A.C.L.U. types and others all upset and angry and jumping up and down,'' he said. ''However, streets are not for sleeping. Streets do not exist in civilized cities for the purpose of people sleeping there. Bedrooms are for sleeping.''

At least one regular cast member in the ongoing drama declined to utter the expected lines. ''You guys play the same role,'' said Norman Siegel, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, explaining how his phone predictably lighted up with calls from reporters. ''The media calls me and they want me to announce a lawsuit to sue him. We won't do that. We have been there and done that.''

Mr. Siegel said he mostly agreed with the Mayor. ''I bite my tongue every time I make the argument that someone has the right to sleep on the streets,'' he said. ''The last thing I want to do is be involved in a Federal lawsuit enjoining Giuliani from arresting people that are sleeping on the streets or by extension arguing that people have a right to be sleeping on the streets where they are freezing to death.''

But agreement aside, Mr. Siegel would still not pass up an opportunity to zing the Giuliani administration. ''We are going to wait and watch what's happening, because my sense is this time that they just knee-jerked this issue,'' he said, turning one of the Mayor's favorite phrases against him. Mr. Siegel said he hoped the Mayor would bring people together to combat homelessness.

Steven Banks, the director of the Homeless Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society, has been working on a lawsuit against the Giuliani administration's effort to make the homeless work in exchange for city shelter. But he, too, saw a glimmer of hope in the Mayor's early remarks.

''My first reaction to the first part of the Mayor's announcement on Friday was that the litigation was going to be resolved and we might be able to take some steps forward.'' But those hopes faded, he said, by the emphasis in recent days on enforcement rather than longer-term prevention.

Behind all the angry posturing on all sides, Mr. Banks suggested, is a desire to address a chronic and complex affliction. ''Somewhere in there, there is a solution to homelessness,'' he said. ''And its clearly the helping hand part, not the back of the hand part.''